


Queen

by Rocky_T



Series: Shades of Gray [4]
Category: Star Trek: Picard, Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:27:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23627659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rocky_T/pseuds/Rocky_T
Summary: Fleshing out Seven's actions aboard the Artifact.
Relationships: Elnor & Seven of Nine, Kathryn Janeway & Seven of Nine
Series: Shades of Gray [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1651849
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	Queen

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Seema for her usual excellent beta.

From the moment she set foot on the cube, she could hear them calling to her.

_“Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero One. You have returned.”_

“No,” Seven said aloud, then winced at her error in giving away her position. Silently, she continued, “I have not come to join you. I am an individual.”

 _“You are an individual,”_ the voice of the Collective agreed. _“You are small. But once you were part of a vast consciousness, billions of minds working together. A harmony of purpose and thought. No indecision, no doubts. The security and strength of a unified will.”_

 _And I have lost that._ Resolutely, Seven pushed the thought – and the voice of the Collective – away.

She stalked through the cube, encountering no other Borg – former or otherwise – but plenty of Romulans. After terminating the ones that threatened Elnor, Picard’s young protégé, she assessed the situation, and pondered from which location they could best defend themselves. After a brief hesitation, she led the way to the only sector that possibly held their salvation – the queen cell.

The closer their approach to the nerve center of the cube, the stronger the voice of the Collective grew. With every step, it became harder for Seven to resist their siren call. _Rejoin us. You are incomplete without us._ Like the sirens of old, they offered the promise of knowledge – knowledge too vast to be encompassed by a single humanoid brain, but was freely available to a drone who was part of the hive mind.

Once more, she pushed those thoughts away and concentrated on the task at hand. She consulted the cube’s systems to locate the lifeforms on board, first seeking the Borg that Hugh had reclaimed. The readout confirmed there were 47 ex-Bs on board, pitifully few in number. They could not be expected to mount much of a defense, let alone an attack, against 150 Romulans, even if they were aware of the threat now posed by their former benefactors.

Thousands more drones, whole, untouched, remained in stasis. “What if you woke them up?” asked Elnor.

Seven glanced at him, startled by his astute observation. He clearly understood their predicament, and yet, he couldn’t possibly know what he was asking.

“They would be useless without the voice of the Borg Collective,” she said shortly, then added, “someone would need to tell them to act.”

“Couldn’t you tell them?” Elnor gestured at the complex machinery around them. “You could activate them and provide them with a directive, couldn’t you?”

Seven cast him another sharp look. Had Hugh mentioned something like this to him, before he died? “I could activate them and link their transceivers to create a sort of ‘mini-collective’,” she admitted.

“And use them against the Romulan troops,” Elnor said excitedly. “What are you waiting for?”

“By taking control, I would essentially be assimilating them again,” Seven said harshly, “leaving them with no free will.”

“Couldn’t you simply release them after we win?” 

“They might not want to be released,” Seven said. Her voice dropped lower as she added, to herself, “And I might not want to release them.”

She closed her eyes, lost in a sudden memory.

_“This drone is small now. Alone. One voice, one mind. The silence is unacceptable. We need the others!” Her voice, pleading with Janeway to be restored to the Collective._

_But Janeway was implacable. “I can't give you back to the Borg, but you're not alone. You're part of a human community now. A human collective. We may be individuals but we live and work together. You can have some of the unity you require right here on **Voyager**.”_

But the time on _Voyager_ had been all too short, and she’d been cast adrift once more. Not intentionally abandoned, but the passage of time had weakened the bonds between her and the crew – between her and the captain. A surge of anger snapped her out of her reverie. Enough delay. Seven rapidly accessed the vast databanks, seeking the drones in stasis. 

Suddenly, Elnor gave a shout. “The life signs – they’re fading!”

 _Resistance is futile._ With no choice left, Seven gritted her teeth and linked herself fully to the cube’s systems. Immediately, long tentacle-like projections emerged and snaked toward her. She cried out as they penetrated her spinal column and central nervous system, a cry of pain that was swiftly overcome by a sense of familiarity – and relief.

_We are Borg._

With inhuman speed, Seven rapidly created her mini-collective, the reactions of the newly awakened drones washing over her as they became aware of her presence as she reached out to them.

_We are Borg._

Seven paid no attention to Elnor, who shrank away from her in horror. She concentrated the mind of the Collective on a single goal – repelling the intruders. She saw the lines of drones marching toward the Romulans, and willed them to attack.

In response, the Romulans began venting the drones into space. 

_“No!”_ cried Seven of Nine in the Collective voice as she felt the searing pain of the drones as they suffocated. _“We must regain control of the cube!”_ With lightning fast reflexes powered by the Collective, she oversaw the shutdown of the consoles and computer annexes accessed by the Romulans. She directed the drones in the vicinity – mostly ex-Bs – to apprehend the intruders.

Rather than continue the fight, the enemy retreated. The Romulan ships began going to warp. Within minutes, none were left aboard the cube.

 _“The cube is ours again,”_ intoned Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix 01.

The power of the Collective coursed through her, almost dizzying in its intensity. Here was the sense of completeness she had been lacking these many years since she had been severed. Here was a surety of knowledge of her role as both component and queen, power to carry it out, and acceptance of her actions, freed from the constraints of human morality. There was no questioning, no doubt, no hate, no love, no individuality…she frowned, as the vestiges of an earlier conversation intruded on the Borg thought processes.

_“Your attempt to assimilate this drone will fail. You can alter our physiology but you cannot change our nature. We are Borg.”_

_“I’ve met Borg who were freed from the Collective,” Janeway said, her voice insistent. “It wasn't easy for them to accept their individuality, but in time they did. You're no different. Granted, you were assimilated at a very young age, and your transition may be more difficult, but it will happen.”_

_“If it does happen, we will become fully human?”_

_“Yes, I hope so.”_

_“We will be autonomous,” Seven said harshly. “Independent.”_

_Janeway nodded. “That's what individuality is all about.”_

_“If at that time we choose to return to the Collective, will you permit it?”_

_“I don't think you'll want to do that,” Janeway hedged._

_“But if we do?”_

Janeway, as a limited individual, could not possibly have known the allure would be so strong, even decades later.

Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix 01 could feel her mind – the mind of the Borg – expanding outward, seeking the greater Collective. There was much to do, to fully bring this cube into the fold once more.

_“One voice can be stronger than a thousand voices,” Janeway insisted. “Your mind is independent now, with its own unique identity.”_

“Irrelevant,” Seven of Nine said now, and then her attention was captured by one such small voice.

“Are you going to assimilate me now?” Elnor asked. He eyed her warily, waiting for her reply.

Unseen, yet felt by every drone on the cube, a battle raged for possession of Seven’s consciousness. The intensity of the struggle drove her to her knees.

_We are Borg. Resistance is futile._

_Annika. Your name is Annika._

_The others. I can't hear the others. The voices are gone._

_Your link to the Collective has been severed._

_This drone cannot survive outside the Collective!_

_But Annika can._

With a gasp, Seven wrenched herself away from the console, painfully dislodging the tentacles that bound her physically as well as mentally to the Borg. Almost immediately, she was overcome by all-encompassing sense of loss. 

Her heart racing, her system awash in adrenaline, she slowly regained her composure. “No,” she said, to the frightened young man. “Annika still has work to do.”

**Author's Note:**

> Dialogue from the season 4 VOY episode "The Gift" courtesy of chakoteya.net.


End file.
